Legacy(Version 2)
by firstprime1230
Summary: How will the crew of the Odyssey deal with being alone in an unfamiliar galaxy, facing challenges they've never had to deal with before? Can SG-1 manage to bring them home again, or have their sands all but run?
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

 **1700 Hours  
September 16, 2007  
Bridge, USS **_**Odyssey**_ **  
Orilla, Ida Galaxy  
** _

Flying through subspace at many times the speed of the light was one of Earth's BC-304s, its blocky, gray hull standing out against the blue and white color of the hyperspace tunnel.  
The _Odyssey_ was the third ship to be built in Earth's small, but capable, fleet of star ships that were used to take the fight to their enemies on more even terms as opposed to purely ground-based assaults through a Stargate. Although slightly smaller than a _Ha'tak_ , the _Odyssey_ and her sister ships had a huge advantage over the mainstay of the Goa'uld fleet in that most of its advanced technology came from the Asgard, atleast in regards to their defensive and hyperdrive technology.  
The ship was currently on route to the Asgard homeworld at a special request of the Asgard High Council. Normally, Earth wouldn't spare any ship for a diplomatic mission to one of their allies at such a time, what with the Ori fleet being a constant threat to the security of Earth and the occasional reconnaissance mission against the Wraith ; however, the Asgard were much more than a common ally. In the words of Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet, they and Earth were true friends and had pulled SG-1's and Earth's asses out of the fire on many occasions. So when they requested that Earth send SG-1 and one of their ships to Orilla, even without giving the exact reason as to why, the IOA and President knew they couldn't refuse. And so the _Odyssey_ had spent the last three days in hyperspace on her way to Orilla, her crew and passengers taking the time to relax until they had to drop out of hyperspace.

On deck 3 Colonel Mitchell and Teal'c were, along with several marines and airmen, in Exercise Room-B sparing with wooden staffs; mostly it was Teal'c going easy on Mitchell who, while having become a fairly skilled hand-to-hand combatant in his own right since training with the Sodan, couldn't hope to keep up with the former First Prime who'd spent over seventy years honing his combat skills. Some of the crew were watching the match while others focused on their own workouts and sparing.  
Mitchell launched a series of fast paced attacks at the Jaffa Master: a heavy-handed overhead swing that came down over his right shoulder, followed by him swinging his whole body and the staff extended out to bring as much momentum as he could into a side swing, and finally finishing it off by coming back around the other way. Unfortunately for Mitchell everyone of his attacks were blocked by Teal'c who held a firm grip as he twisted the staff to intercept the incoming assaults. Backing off for a moment, Mitchell closed the distance again and thrust his staff a Teal'c's shoulder, only for it to be blocked yet again. Teal'c then rotated his wrists and staff to throw Mitchell's staff to the side while he followed up with a cross that would have landed a solid blow to the colonel's head. Mitchell managed to duck in time, however, and sent a sweeping strike that was intended to knock Teal'c to the ground; the Jaffa jumped over the strike and came down on Mitchell with an overhead strike. Mitchell only barely managed to bring his staff up to block it, then smacked Teal'c's arm away just enough to put a little distance between them again. This time both soldier and warrior moved in on each other, swinging and locking their staffs together.

"This vessel does not have a pool," Teal'c quipped while pushing Mitchell back slightly.

Mitchell put more force into his defense in an effort not to be pushed back, but knew that in a test of strength he would definitely lose to his friend.

"I was talking about the gambling variety," he explained as he brought the other end of his staff up to strike at his opponent's un guarded side.

Teal'c merely used the other end of his own staff to slap the blow away, using the momentum to bring up two consecutive blows from either end of his weapon, forcing Mitchell to back off and bring his staff up horizontally to defend. Pulling back, Teal'c sent a light swing that Mitchell smacked to the side, but he overestimated the force that Teal'c put behind the blow and managed to throw himself off balance. Capitalizing on his advantage Teal'c brought the other end of his weapon across and struck Cam on his lower back near his kidneys. The crew, both those watching and not, let out a chorus-like 'ooh' from the sound of the impact. As Mitchell recovered Teal'c spun his staff around quickly, switching hands and began walking back to his side of the training mat.

"I do not wish to speculate," he replied to the colonel's explanation.

Cam put his hand on his side as he tried to relieve the pain, though he counted himself lucky that Teal'c wasn't trying his hardest. He'd fought against Teal'c, as well as other versions of him, when it wasn't a friendly sparring match and it never ended well for the colonel when Teal'c actually tried to win a fight quickly.

"Well they said it was something important. You aren't the least bit curious?" he asked the Jaffa as he brought his staff back up and got into a defensive stance.

Teal'c, who was spinning his staff in preparation to continue, replied, "Indeed. But I would not risk a wager... hyaahhh!" he cried as he went on the offensive.

Elsewhere on deck 5 Doctor Daniel Jackson was walking to the mess hall, passing by several working crewmen, while going over his notes on the Asgardian language for their meeting with the Asgard High Council. Daniel always tried to speak to the new cultures they met if he knew the language, and always endeavored to learn new ones he didn't know. As he arrived at the officer's mess hall he hit the door control to open the reinforced trinium-alloy door, only to be startled as the whole room exploded with confetti and party blowers and yells of "surprise!" from around a dozen of the crew. Daniel looked at them in slight confusion, but soon turned to annoyance when he saw SG-1's most unconventional member, Vala Mal Doran, standing in the middle of the room on top of a table wearing a small, cone shaped birthday hat.

Daniel rolled his eyes and put his book under his arm as the cheers died down enough for him to speak, "It's not my birthday," he stated bluntly, then turned to get away from Vala and find a place to continue his studying.

The crew ceased all noise, and there was an awkward silence as the doctor left the entrance to the mess hall. The silence was broken by Vala who gave an awkward chuckle as she leapt down from the table and chased after Daniel. The crew then began to try and ease the awkwardness by slicing up the cake they had made and trying to put off the thought that they had been tricked by Miss Mal Doran... again.

"Hey! We made a... weird, piñata thingy..." she trailed off, trying to convince him to play along with her game and come back.

Daniel looked down at the floor, sighed, and turned to face his team mate, "I told you to bring something to amuse yourself. I didn't mean me, or the crew."

"But they won't believe that it's my birthday... again," she explained, as if that somehow would convince him.

"Not my problem," was his only reply, spinning around and continuing on his walk to find a secluded place.

Vala's face had a look of anguish, as though she were in physical pain, "Being stuck on this ship is worse than being at the SGC. I-I'm telling you the last time I was this bored I took hostages," she yelled out, trying one last time to convince Daniel to stay and entertain her.

"I was there," Daniel called out as he turned a corner into the next hallway.

Several hundred meters away on the bridge General O'Neill and Colonel Carter walked onto the bridge. Although General Landry was originally intended to take the Odyssey, Jack had decided that he should go. After all, him and Thor were great friends and the Asgard tended to prefer him over any other representative that Earth could send. He walked over to the command chair as he greeted the bridge crew, Carter standing off to the side as she waited for Marks's report.

"We're approaching the coordinates sir," Marks informed the general, his hand ready to send the necessary commands to the ship's hyperdrive control.

"Finally, it's about time. Drop us out," he ordered, not noticing Carter shaking her head slightly.

Despite the fact that it had taken them only a few days to reach Orilla, something that would not have been possible without the ZPM tied into their power systems, Jack still found a way to complain about the journey. She didn't know how he survived the nearly three week trek to Atlantis when the Ancients from the _Tria_ had been found by the Atlantis expedition. No doubt he gave Caldwell a hard time.

Suddenly the blue tunnel of hyperspace disappeared in a flash of light, the normal blackness of space appearing at break-neck speeds as the stars streaked to a halt. Ahead the blue and green orb of Orilla came into view, offering the crew of the Earth ship a perfect seat to look out at the Earth-like homeworld of the Asgard. In orbit around the planet were several _O'Neill_ -class warships and _Daniel Jackson_ -class science vessels. Slowly the Odyssey came to rest in the middle of the formation, the crew onboard who were looking out windows feeling slightly intimidated by the massive ships; even the science vessels were about the same size as the five hundred meter long 304.

Back on the bridge a message alert rang out on Marks's console, "Sir, the Asgard are requesting permission to beam aboard."

Jack tilted his head in confusion, then turned to share a look with Carter who was similarly confused. The Asgard typically would just beam aboard their ships without a second thought of informing the crew of the ship, and without official permission from the ship's commander. But since the Asgard were pretty much the sole reason Earth had capable starships in the first place no one really said anything. So for them to request permission was... startlingly out of character for them. Jack nodded his head at Marks, who in turn punched in the proper message granting the Asgard permission to board. At the same time the rest of SG-1 walked onto the bridge, having felt the slight shift that was associated with dropping out of hyperspace. There was a low harmonious tone that grew along with the familiar blue-white pillars that began to appear. Just as suddenly as the nearly magical transporter beam arrived on the bridge it winked out of existence, depositing the small, naked, grey form of an Asgard.

"Greetings, and welcome to Orilla," spoke the voice of Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet.

"Thor old buddy. What's new?" Jack asked as he got up out of his chair and moved to stand in front of the diminutive alien, his arms resting on his hips.

"Hello General O'Neill, Colonel Carter. It is good to see you," Thor replied as he nodded at both of the humans.

Off to the side Vala leaned into Daniel whispering, "Out of curiosity how can you tell the difference?" she asked, as most of the pictures she'd seen of different Asgard all looked the same to her.

"The voice," Daniel replied quietly, not wanting to interrupt Thor.

"It's good to see you too Thor," Carter replied before turning to SG-1, "This is Colonel Mitchell and Vala Mal Doran, the newest commander and member of SG-1."

Mitchell gave a small wave but otherwise remained stationary and serious, while Vala shyly waved her hand back and forth while offering her most sincere smile. Despite her abrasive and obnoxious personality, even she had a healthy amount of respect for the race that the even the Goa'uld feared for the majority of their then thousand year rule over the galaxy.

"Greetings," Thor replied, nodding his head in respect of the newest members of the team that had saved the Asgard race on several occasions.

"So Thor how've ya been? Haven't heard from you in a while..." Daniel trailed off, waiting for the Supreme Commander to explain his absence.

"I am sorry, I have been otherwise occupied. As mentioned in our communication, the High Council wishes to meet with you to explain in greater detail, but there is not much time," Thor told them as he turned back to Jack, "O'Neill, with your permission a number of Asgard are prepared to beam aboard and begin installing various technological upgrades to this ship."

Mitchell, with his arms folded across his chest, turned to Teal'c, "I hope it's ray guns. I got ray guns in the pool," he explained his hopes to the Jaffa and turned his attention back to Thor.

Teal'c turned slowly to stare stoically at the colonel, not quite understanding his mannerisms anymore than he did O'Neill's.

"So what are we getting this time? Better shields? Power generators? Maybe some weapons..." Jack mumbled the end, hoping that Thor would hear his complaint and help him out.

"Everything we have and know," was the Asgard's stunning reply.

The entire crew was dead silent, not sure how to react upon hearing such news. While the Asgard had given Earth several key technologies as gifts of thanks for the several times they had been saved by SG-1, they hadn't given Earth any of their most advanced toys; primarily weapons. While the Earth fleet boasted strong defensive technology and were faster than anything in the possession of the Free Jaffa or Wraith, they lacked the firepower to engage many targets and win.

"By that you mean?" Vala questioned, now very intrigued by how much such an advanced race as the Asgard was willing to give them.

"Everything. All our most current technology, all our knowledge," Thor blatantly stated.

The crew was again stunned into silence, though the bridge officers began shelling out orders across the ship to begin for the arrival of the Asgard technicians. SG-1 and General O'Neill were still too stunned to speak, as they had known the Asgard longer than anyone on Earth and had never once thought that this day would come. Every time Earth tried to negotiate for advanced technologies from off-world allies they usually ended up with Earth getting a obsolete or damaged piece of tech, if they were lucky.

Finally Daniel broke the silence, "Sorry, we're just a little stunned. I mean... why are you doing this? You've always resisted in the past, you've always said we weren't ready."

Thor nodded, "Indeed. Many Asgard still believe that."

Mitchell got a hard look on his face, knowing that something this good couldn't come without a cost, "So what's changed?"

Thor looked down at the floor for a moment, a vacant stare fixed upon his face. The members of SG-1 looked at each other with worried glances; Asgard typically never displayed such emotion, even this small amount, especially not Thor. The Supreme Commander looked back up at the bridge, the vacant look gone again and replaced by the emotionless face of the Asgard.

Raising his hand to his chest Thor spoke, "As a race we are dying. Very soon we will all be gone."

The humans all looked to each other again, this time absolute shock written on their faces as some shifted in discomfort over the information they had just received. Carter looked at Jack who had what she would akin to the 'Thousand-Yard Stare' over hearing that one of his best friends was going to die, along with his entire species.

After allowing the Asgard technicians aboard, SG-1 along with General O'Neill and the _Odyssey's_ crew were beamed down to the surface of Orilla. Several sections of the ship's hull had to be removed so that the Asgard could change out the current power conduits that were in use by the BC-304's, and upgraded them with more sturdy and conductive ones of the latest Asgard design. Thanks to their beaming technology the process went by relatively quickly, taking only around fifteen hours to complete. The _Odyssey's_ sensors and communications, both through subspace and not, were upgraded as well allowing the ship to contact Earth even if it was a galaxy away and detect incoming ships through hyperspace even at great distances. Their shields were also upgraded with the most advanced shield generator ever designed by the Asgard, allowing for an equal amount of punishment that their _O'Neill_ -class warships could take while being far easier to power and at a much more compact size since the Asgard ships were nearly three times the _Odyssey's_ size. Probably one of the most important pieces of tech given to the Taur'i were the newly developed plasma beam weapons. Unlike most of their ion-based weaponry, the plasma beam weapons used a special kind of plasma generated and collected from subspace, superheated to over fifty-thousand kelvin, roughly the surface temperature of a blue super-giant, and suspended inside a self-contained force field ; the plasma was then fired out of the cannon using electromagnetic fields to contain the beam as it reached its intended target. According to the Asgard, no shield that had been encountered to this point would be able to withstand such attacks for an extended period of time, at the very least would cause the ship to retreat or risk destruction. Hopefully they would prove effective against the Ori motherships that, barring the unstable energy vortex of a SuperGate and the Dakara super weapon, had proven resistant to every other form of weaponry.

On the planet below the crew was divided amongst various Asgard teams who were teaching them how to operate, as well as repair and maintain, the new equipment and tech that was being installed on the 304. Carter along with the more technologically minded crew were with Vasir and several other Asgard scientists learning what they could about the more advanced and delicate systems.  
Daniel and Vala were with Odin, one of the oldest living Asgard, and several other Asgard historians who were teaching them, although it was more like teaching to Daniel and Vala being forced to sit and listen where Dr Jackson could keep an eye on her, everything they could about how to use the knowledge base that would contain their entire history and helping Daniel become much more fluent in the Asgard language with technology similar to the Ancient Repository.  
Cam and Teal'c, along with the marine contingent aboard the _Odyssey_ , were with Heimdall and what was left of the Asgard military, learning about the new weapons systems and receiving some training on old Asgard tech that was used when the Asgard still had their original forms. Teal'c personally received a great gift that would benefit all the Jaffa, a token of thanks for their efforts for helping the Taur'i in overthrowing the Goa'uld and Teal'c steadfast loyalty towards his Taur'i friends. Using their advanced knowledge of genetics, the Asgard were able to complete the genetic manipulation the Goa'uld had used on humans all those millennia ago: Teal'c now had all the benefits that a symbiote would normally provide and his physical abilities pushed to the absolute peak of Jaffa physical potential. Once they returned to the Milky Way they would be able to give all Jaffa this gift, allowing them to no longer rely on symbiotes or Tretonin.  
Jack was with Thor, the two having retired to Thor's personal quarters after their meeting with the High Council. Jack sat awkwardly on the floor with his legs crosses and propped up by his arms as the Asgard had not designed any of their furniture with humans in mind.

"So... there's nothing you or anyone can do to solve this problem?" he asked his longtime alien friend, though he knew that if the Asgard said it couldn't be done then it most likely couldn't.

"I'm afraid not O'Neill. The disease we all carry will cause our bodies to begin to shut down in the coming weeks, perhaps days. Once that happens we will be unable to move or function, and we will all slowly die off. We believe that in order for Earth, as well as the known universe, to survive against the Ori you will need everything we can offer. As we cannot no longer offer our direct assistance... this seemed like the most logical course of action," Thor slowly replied.

"What about cloning new bodies? Or putting your minds inside of a machine like you did with me or like what happened to you on Anubis's ship? Or throwing your brains into jars?" Jack asked the first few possibilities he could think of, even if the last question was a bit ridiculous.

Thor sighed, "If we cloned new bodies they too would carry the disease we all carry, and most likely would never grow properly. Even if that wasn't the case it would take three of your Earth months to clone, and that is simply not enough time," Thor explained, dashing O'Neill's hopes, "And because this disease has stretched so far as to affect our neurological systems in our brains, a transfer of our consciousness into computers would be impossible as the transfer would be corrupted."

Jack stood up and looked out the window overseeing the entire Asgard city, "Not that we don't appreciate, or need, what your offering but... come Thor! You guys are the closest thing to the Ancients that anyone's ever gotten! There's got to be something you can do!" he nearly shouted, unwilling to accept this as their fate after how many times they had saved each other.

Thor shook his head, then stood up and walked over to the general. Despite the difference in height Jack never felt any bigger or equal to the Asgard, who was thousands of years older as well as the Supreme Commander of their fleet, but at this very moment, for the first time since they had met, Jack felt as though he and Thor were equals. Friends.

"I am sorry O'Neill, but this is the way things are and must be. If we thought there was any chance... we would have taken it, but it is far too late now. Our final task is to insure that you and your people have the means to fight the Ori and any future enemy you may encounter, as well as insure the protection of the human populations of your galaxy," Thor apologized before looking out the window at his people's last city.

After a moment of silence Thor turned back and offered up his hand to Jack, just as he had done all those years ago when Jack had used Ancient knowledge to travel to Ida for the first time. Jack looked down at Thor but kneeled down and took his hand to reciprocate the gesture.

"I wish you to know O'Neill... that you are my friend," the Supreme Commander simply stated, as though he needed to be sure the general was aware.

But Jack knew, words weren't needed to describe such friendships; friendships that were forged in the heat of battle and strengthened through placing one's life in the hands of another. Such friendships transcended simple words and gestures, they were defined by the two friends and the friends were defined by their friendship. Not even the threat of ever approaching extinction could stop or take that away.

"I... I know. You're... you're my friend too Thor," Jack shakily replied, his voice cracking a bit from sorrow he was experiencing, a feeling he did not often feel but had in the past.

Losing a friend was never easy, but Jack made it through the day believing that their deaths helped save others. Jack wouldn't forget this, nor would he let the people of Earth forget it. He would _die_ before he let someone attempt to squander or sully the Asgard's memory.  
Suddenly an alert rang out from Thor's palm device, signaling that the upgrades to the _Odyssey_ were nearly complete. The two looked at each other in silence for a moment before Thor spoke up.

"Goodbye Jack, we will meet again," Thor bid farewell for the last time, knowing that the remainder of his time would be spent putting the finishing touches on the upgrades.

Jack was quiet for a moment, then he took a deep breath and said, "We'll see each other again buddy, someday."

Thor was about to correct him, when he suddenly stopped. He looked O'Neill in the eye, something was there that, while he couldn't comprehend it, caused Jack to full believe what he had said. Deciding to take a leap of faith, something the Asgard as a whole did not do often, smiled up at O'Neill for the first time.

"...Yes, I believe we will," was all he said as the musical tone of the Asgard transport system beamed them both up the 304.

Finally, after nineteen hours of constant working the Asgard finished the upgrades to the _Odyssey_. On deck 4 in the engineering room the Asgard had just finished installing the last and most important piece of technology: the Asgard Computer Core. This device not only contained the entire technological database of the Asgard, but their entire recorded history as well.

"The Asgard computer core is equipped with its own power source that will not infringe on your ship's ZPM. However, when the upgrades are complete the core will be fully integrated into all the ship's systems," Thor explained to Carter, turning to her to while she sat in a chair.

Biting her lip and looking away a bit she asked, "There must be something more you can do?"

Thor stared back at her, his face like stone, "I assure you, we are providing you with all the latest Asgard technology. As well as a knowledge base including our entire recorded history."

Sam smiled a bit and shook her head; the Asgard, despite their massive intellects, seemed nearly incapable of picking up on certain human emotions such as sarcasm, or interpreting what humans meant when they asked questions that pertained to another topic.

"That's not what I was talking about," she replied, looking Thor straight in the eyes.

"Everything that can be done has been done," Thor replied, though this time his voice strained with the emotional weight of his peoples ever approaching fate and leaving those he called friends, "Our final attempt to solve our physiological degeneration, has left each of us with a rapidly progressing disease."

Meanwhile in the debriefing room on level 6, SG-1 along with General O'Neill were going over what the Asgard High Council had told Daniel and Jack in their meeting several hours before. They all sat around and listened solemnly to the news that the two brought.

"It really wasn't an option for them. They made the choice to extend their life through science generations ago. Took any natural physiological evolution necessary for Ascension out of the equation..." the doctor trailed off.

Jack was slumped back into his chair tapping the metal table over and over with his pointer finger, "Yep, and they're gona go out in one last blaze of glory..."

Mitchell turned to Daniel, as clearly the general wasn't in the mood, "Mass suicide?"

"They don't want any of their knowledge or technology falling into the wrong hands," he explained, as the catholic-side of Mitchell clearly didn't like the idea of anyone, especially one of Earth's closest allies, killing themselves.

"And they went to the trouble of asking us if we'd see them off," Jack spoke up, his eyes staring blankly at the table.

"So everything they have installed on this ship..." Teal'c began, his hands folded in across his lap.

"Is going to be their legacy," Daniel finished.

The team sat quietly as they processed the information, processed that Earth's strongest and best ally was about to be no more. Not only would they be losing a potentially crucial ally against the Ori, but they would be losing one of their oldest friends.

Back in engineering Thor activated the Asgard Core for the first time, the crystals and core lighting up and turning on as power from the power core, the latest in Asgard design that acted in a similar manner to ZPM's in that it drew its power from subspace-time and would eventually reach maximum entropy. Of course it would be potentially thousands of years before that happened.

"If you like, you'll be able to interface with the Core's AI using a holographic representation of me, or any other Asgard on record in the knowledge base," Thor explained.

Sam turned her attention away from the awe-inspiring core to Thor, "I'm sorry but that just won't be the same," she explained sadly.

"I have been working on this for the better part of a _year_ Colonel Carter," Thor replied somewhat insulted, but understanding as well.

Sam, realizing the way she had said it, tried to recover, "And we appreciate it, really."

"Many on the Council did not believe we should be imparting such advancements," Thor informed her, having spent the other part of the year convincing them that this was the proper course of action.

Nodding in appreciation she replied, "Well I promise we will do our very best not to let you down."

"You are the Fifth Race," Thor began as Sam sat up straighter and gulped slightly, "Your role is clear: if there is any hope in preserving the future, it lies with you and your people."

Sam shook her head in shock and unease, "No pressure, huh?"

"You have all earned my respect... and my friendship," Thor told her, as well as referring to the rest of SG-1 whom he didn't get a chance to personally see off because of time constraints.

Sam nodded and closed her eyes in an effort to hold back the tears that were forming, "Well the feelings mutual," she replied with a heartrending smile.

Thor tilted his head as he looked at her, "Please do not be sad," he said as she looked away, as if not wanting to hear it, "The end of my people has been a long time coming. We have made too many irreversible mistakes in our development; hopefully you can learn something from it. My only regret... is that our physical _weakness_... has left us incapable of helping you further."

Sam, not knowing how else to reply as words escaped her, leaned forward and gently hugged the Asgard. Thor's first reaction was to lean back, as physical contact wasn't a normal Asgard custom, but instead wrapped his gangly arms around the colonel in his best show of providing comfort. Though the Asgard were incapable of shedding tears due to having lost their tear ducts over the generations of cloning and controlled mutation, Thor felt more anguish today than he had ever felt in his twelve thousand years of living. All because of this small group of humans who, despite all odds, managed to become some of his greatest friends in a comparatively short amount of time. Even with all the problems and pain that he had experienced over the last few years, he would never trade those years even if for the chance to save his race. These humans were his friends, and more if Thor was being honest with himself; he could only hope that they knew what they meant to him.

Back on the bridge, General O'Neill had just opened the door when an alarm rang out over the ship's speakers. Knowing that it was the alert system for unknown contacts dropping out of hyperspace, he quickly made his way over to the command chair.

"Sir, three Ori motherships just dropped out of hyperspace and are approaching the planet," Marks informed his commanding officer.

Just as he finished his sentence, however, the ship rocked and rumbled as the shield grid of the _Odyssey_ absorbed and dissipated the energy from the one of the Or ships. The bridge lit up in blue light as the Asgard shield glowed from the incoming assault, slowly fading away until the last of the energy was gone. Jack reached over to the controls on the right armrest, activating the PA that connected him to the engineering room.

"Carter, we got trouble. Looks like the Ori found our little... going away party. We're gona need the hyperdrive," he calmly stated, despite the fact that three, four kilometer long ships were headed their way.

In the engineering room Carter quickly moved over to the ship's diagnostic console, checking over the readings and seeing that the hyperdrive was currently shut down so as not to overload when its power wasn't being regulated by the Core.

"Sir the hyperdrive is still offline, I'm diverting power to the shield," she replied, performing the necessary power adjustments and rerouting power from the ship's ZPM to the shield matrix.

"You _must_ go," Thor solemnly told her.

Sam turned around just in time to see the grey form of the Supreme Commander of the Asgard fleet disappear in the magical light of a transporter beam for the last time. Once the light had faded, showing Thor was no longer on the _Odyssey_ , Sam turned back to the console.

"Sir the Asgard just disembarked, it'll take a few minutes to get the hyperdrive back online," she reported into the com as she turned to the Asgard Core in order to reactivate the hyperdrive.

On the bridge, General O'Neill cursed silently under his breath. Even with the ZPM boosting the _Odyssey's_ shields to their max capacity, one 304 against _three_ Ori motherships was pretty much a no-win-scenario. Even if they could hold out, the Asgard were about to enact their final task before they were all gone, and Jack really didn't want to be around when that happened.

"Full sublight, get us clear of the planet," he ordered Marks.

"Full sublight," Marks nodded in acknowledgement.

The powerful engines sprang to life in an instant, accelerating the _Odyssey_ out of Orilla's orbit and away from the planet at one-hundred thousand kilometers per second. The three Ori ships quickly moved in, two descending on the planet below in order to finally put an end to the one race that presented the greatest threat to their crusade, and secure whatever technology they could while the third was pursuing to attack the _Odyssey_.

The ship rocked as the shield grid absorbed and dissipated the sun-yellow energy from the Ori particle cannon, the newer shields doing a much better job of repelling the massive amount of fire power than the previous models had done. Mitchell and Teal'c were about to enter the bridge when they were unbalanced slightly by the continuous energy blasts.

"Shields down to 86%" Major Marks reported as he attempted to make minor course adjustments, though he was unable to make any type of actual evasive maneuver since doing so would allow the Ori ship to close the distance and have a better line of fire.

Mitchell grabbed the back of Captain Santiago's weapons station for support to prevent himself from being knocked over, "How the hell did they find us?"

Again the ship thundered as it was hammered by the powerful energy weapon, the crew all grabbing what they could to keep themselves on their feet.

"Some reason we're not jumping to hyperspace?" the colonel asked.

"Carter's working on it," Jack replied, his hands gripping the arm rests of his command chair rather tightly.

An alert pinged out from Marks's navigation console, "Sir, sensors are detecting a _massive_ build up of energy coming from the planet."

Jack, realizing what was about to happened, hit the button to the ship-wide com, "All hands brace for impact!"

All crewman on the ship immediately grabbed whatever they could for support, bracing themselves for the inevitable shockwave that was about to hit their ship. As the Odyssey and Ori ship accelerated away from the planet, their sensors read massive spikes in energy coming from Orilla as a result from the activation of the Asgard subspace fusion bomb, the most powerful weapon ever conceived by the old race.  
Bomb was a misnomer, rather it was a series of devices that collected energy from subspace, similar to a Zero Point Module, and then directed that energy downwards towards the planet's core. That energy squeezed and compressed the planet's neutronium core, to the point where the individual molecules overcame the magnetic force between their nuclei and fused. It only took three seconds for the entire core to fuse into what was essentially a neutronium fusion bomb, and after those three seconds it reached critical mass. The results were rather spectacular: All over the planet's surface colossal explosions shot out from the core, obliterating entire continents and evaporating oceans in a matter of microseconds, and taking out the two Ori warships that had attempted to land on the planet. Then, as quickly as it began, it was over: the whole sphere of what was once the Asgard's final home detonated, the area that it occupied as well as the surrounding space replaced by a second sun in the solar system. The final act of one of the last of the Alliance of the Four Great Races was complete, managing to go out on their own terms without compromising their honor, dignity, and spirit; joining the Ancients and other races by passing into legend as one of the noblest and most intelligent forms of life to ever exist.  
Although they were now about a million and a half kilometers out from the explosion, the shockwave managed to reach both ships and slam into their advanced shields. They flared bright blue and white respectively as the blast wave passed over the ships, shaking the occupants of both.

"Goodbye Thor..." O'Neill whispered quietly, only Teal'c could hear him thanks to his enhanced senses.

Marks grit his teeth as the whole bridge shook but returned to his monitoring as it calmed down, "Shields are down to 50%."

"Carter?" the general asked into the com, hoping for good news since the shield wouldn't be able to take much more.

" _Sir the hyperdrive is now online but we have to get clear of the radiation caused by the explosion before we can make the jump safely_ ," she replied, going over the sensor data that indicated the entire area that was previously occupied by Orilla was now saturated in an unknown form of radiation and gravitational distortions from the sudden missing body of mass.

Just as Jack was about to reply when the ship was struck again by the main weapon of the Ori vessel, sending several consoles into overload and shooting sparks out over the bridge. The emergency halon systems kicked in, shorting out the overloading systems and putting out any potential fire.

"Shields are down to 23%, at maximum sublight we're still forty seconds to get clear," Marks somewhat worriedly informed the bridge.

Mitchell shook his head, "We're not gona make it."

"Carter, we need to engage the hyperdrive now, we have no time!" Jack half yelled into the com.

Suddenly the ship rocked again, sparks flying out all over the bridge filling the air with the putrid smell of burnt electronics. Everyone quickly latched onto something to keep themselves up, all except Teal'c who wasn't as easily moved thanks to his large size and graceful balance. In engineering, Carter barely managed to keep from falling by grabbing the back of the Core's main console. Once she steadied herself she looked at the shield diagnostic, seeing that the shields wouldn't be able to take another blast. Quickly she brought up the hyperdrive controls and initiated the power up sequence, a low hum was audible from the engine coming online.

" _Jumping in three, two, one_ ," she reported back into the com, alerting the general of the imminent jump into hyperspace.

As the _Odyssey_ sped away from the pursuing Ori ship, a blue tear in space suddenly appeared in front of the smaller vessel. Almost immediately the ship accelerated into the hyperspace window, then vanishing from normal space as the window closed behind it once it had completely entered subspace. Expectedly, the Ori ship also engaged its hyperdrive engine, accelerating into their own hyperspace window in order to continue the chase. Unfortunately, neither ship took into account what effects the radiation and subspace distortions that the destruction of Orilla would have on hyperspace windows. On the bridge of the Earth vessel the crew relaxed as the calming blue waves of their hyperspace tunnel passed by, signaling that they were safe again, for the moment.  
Jack slowly stood up from his command chair and took a moment to catch his breath, which he had been unconsciously holding while they had been running from the Ori. Taking a deep breath, he turned back to the bridge to see most of the airmen already working to fix and replace damaged consoles and power conduits. No doubt the rest of the ship was in a similar state of damage, and probably would need time at Earth's dry dock to get fully repaired. Still, for the moment they were safe and that was good enough for him.

"Alright, good work people. Its gona take a few hours to get back to Earth, so let's get started on whatever repairs need to be done so that we make it back home, then I want-" he began to order his people when Marks suddenly cut him off.

"Sir? Ship sensors are detecting some... fluctuations in the hyperspace window," the major informed.

SG-1 looked at each other in worry, hoping that this wouldn't cause a problem for them. But knowing their luck, it probably would since it seemed a new problem arose to derail them from their missions whenever things seemed to get easy. Jack quickly walked over to the chair and hit the com link to engineering.

"Carter? What's going on?" he asked, sighing as he expected Carter to reply with some sort of doomed-filled warning that the universe was going to end or something.

Before she even had the chance to respond, the blue hyperspace tunnel they were traveling suddenly shifted to a ruby red, along with red bolts of energy that danced back and forth across the tunnel and over the ship. Suddenly the tunnel vanished from sight, the normal light-dotted, blackness of space coming into view quickly as the _Odyssey_ decelerated from traveling in subspace. The crew and SG-1 looked at each other in confusion, while Jack turned to Major Marks for an explanation.

"Major?" he asked in his usual confused, aggravated, and worrying tone.

Marks shook his head while he went over the hyperdrive diagnostics, "No idea what happened sir. We dropped out of hyperspace after the ship's systems detected the hyperspace tunnel destabilize."

" _Sir I can confirm that, preliminary analysis shows a spike in the EM field just as we entered subspace. I'm also reading large gravitational distortions and high levels of hard radiation that were detected, most likely caused by the destruction of Orilla_ ," Carter agreed with Marks from engineering.

"Where are we?" Daniel asked as he stepped up to look out the window, noting nothing peculiar or out of the ordinary now that they were back in real space/time.

Marks quickly pulled up the navigational charts and their relative position, but quickly became confused by what he found, "Sir? Our coordinates indicate that we're back inside the Milky Way."

Teal'c, standing tall and his arms folded behind his back, raised his eyebrow, "Even with the upgrades provided by the Asgard should this ship not have taken several hours to return to our galaxy."

"Ya it should have. Are our sensors working right?" Mitchell asked as he stepped behind Marks to go over the information himself.

" _Yes our sensors are functioning properly, but there's something else, something definitely wrong. Our star charts and the current alignment of the stars aren't synced up_ ," Carter reported, going over the real-time information being collected from their long range sensors.

"What you mean like when I have to update my Ibox-music-thingy so I can get all those new songs I downloaded?" Vala asked, failing to mention that she had stolen Daniel's credit card to buy the two hundred dollars worth of music.

There was a full minute long pause before the colonel replied, "... _Actually that's not too far off. Based on the current position of the stars, the only possible explanation is that a considerable amount of time has passed to account for the stellar drift; roughly one hundred and seventy years give or take_."

The entire bridge was stunned into silence, as though they had just been told the Asgard were dying and giving them all their technology again. How had they travelled forward in time? While the Taur'i, or more specifically SG-1, were no strangers to time travel there was usually a Stargate or some sort of time machine involved, as far as they knew all they had done was jump to hyperspace.

Vala suddenly broke the silence with a nervous laugh, "That's funny, I could have sworn you said we-"

"-Traveled into the future?" Daniel finished her sentence.

" _I know, I don't understand how it happened either, but it's the only explanation for the change in position. Luckily the drift isn't much, relatively speaking, so we won't have a problem going places. It's also how the ship's computers were able to show our location, and our star charts have just updated with the input of the new data. As for how we ended up back in the Milky Way, I don't know. I can only guess that entering hyperspace before we cleared the radiation from Orilla is what caused it, but I need more time to determine a definite answer_ ," Carter explained, shutting off the com while she went back to her work.

"What about contacting our allies? Or Earth?" asked Mitchell, hoping they could get some intel on what exactly the state of the galaxy was.

There was a pause as Lieutenant Ryans, the communication and sensors officer, attempted to contact the SGC, Homeworld Command, the Free Jaffa, and every other Earth ally that had subspace communications. After a few minutes of silence, the communications officer shook his head.  
Again the bridge was quiet, only the soft hum of the ship's power core and the occasional alerts and pings from the control consoles helped alleviate the silence. What were they to do? If that much time had passed what had become of Earth? Had the Ori managed to concur this galaxy long ago, was there anyone left in this galaxy? What of the Free Jaffa and their other allies, what of Atlantis? These questions and many more plagued the minds of the crew and SG-1 as they tried to come to grips with their current situation.

Finally they were broken from their thoughts by Lieutenant Ryans who stood toward to front of the bridge off to the right manning the communications/sensor console, "Sir? Long range sensors are detecting a series of radio waves and microwave emissions fifty six light years from our current position."

"Can you pick up on who is sending them? Is it a message?" asked Vala, anxious to figure out _something_ that could help them right now.

Ryans shook his head, "Negative, they're too faint to get any type of detailed reading."

"Well it's a start, let's check it out. Set course and take us into hyperspace," Jack ordered, but tilted his head in slight worry then clicked the com, "Assuming of course that the hyperdrive is ok to use?"

" _Yes sir, our hyperdrive is fine; I'm not detecting any fluctuations or damage. Like I said it was the explosion of Orilla that caused the destabilization... I think_ ," Carter replied with a small amount of hesitation in her voice.

Daniel shared a worried glance with the members of his team at Carter's reassurance that did not inspire confidence in them, while Jack shook his head and gave Marks the go ahead to take the ship into hyperspace.

"Wait, what about heading to Earth? Shouldn't we go and see what's happened?" asked Mitchell, worried for the safety of his world and their people, the thought that Earth was a graveyard sending shivers down his spine.

"We can't risk going to Earth or any major populated friendly system until we know what the galactic situation is. Especially with the damage we've taken I'd rather not take on any more Ori ships," Jack explained, but in truth he wanted to do just that and head to Earth.

But he had a responsibility to keep this ship and its crew alive; if the Ori did indeed conquer the galaxy then they needed to come up with plans to liberate it, or atleast find a way back to their own time. The _Odyssey_ began to accelerate forward as the familiar blue cloud-like tear in space appeared, allowing the 304 to accelerate to extreme velocities before it entered the hyperspace window. Once it cleared the event horizon the tear shut just as quickly as it appeared. The trip would only take a few minutes thanks to the new Asgard upgrades, then the crew and SG-1 would see what sort of mess they had gotten themselves into this time.  
_

 **Sorry I've been gone for so long. Things to do, but I decided to redo this story. Hopefully this version is a little better. I'll probably include a codex or something to explain everything's general strength as I see it. Also if you couldn't tell a lot of these early chapters will be inspired from Craxy-88's** _ **The First Movement of the Odyssey**_ **.**


	2. Chapter 2

**So I changed a few things in this chapter just for my own sake. Just some nitpicky stuff, someone mentioned that SG1 helping Aria didn't make sense because they could just hack into everything, so I provided some explanation for that. Hacking won't be an issue for them, just something they weren't keen to trying right out of the box in an unknown situation. Other than that and some smaller stuff not much of a difference.**

Chapter 2

 **1400 Hours  
September 18, 2007  
Bridge, USS **_**Odyssey**_ **  
Unknown signal, Milky Way**

The _Odyssey_ sped out of its hyperspace window at incredible velocities, slowing to an easy cruise of twenty five thousand kilometers an hour. She immediately faded from sight, the space around her distorting until it appeared as if there never was a ship there.

"Cloaking system is online and holding sir," Marks reported as he ran a diagnostic to make sure the cloaking field was functioning properly as it wasn't a system they used too often.

"Sensors?" Jack questioned, as he leaned forward, resting his right arm on his knee while supporting his upper body with his left on his leg.

There was a pause as Marks ran a quick sensor sweep of the immediate space to check for planetary bodies, rogue singularities, enemy ships-  
An alert rang out on the major's console as he pulled up the alert status, the sensors showing a large asteroid field a few hundred thousand kilometers ahead of the ship. The red star in the system shined brightly over the field; ruby tint that gave it an ominous and menacing feeling.

"Sir, I'm reading numerous radio and tightbeam signals, as well dark matter pulses from within the asteroid field on sensors," Marks reported slightly confused, with good reason.

Dark matter was a tricky subject; while the humans had never seen it, if the Asgard's database was to be believed, which it was, then it was a very strange and unnatural element. Apparently the Asgard had dabbled in Dark Energy for power production early in their history, but soon abandoned the technology when they invented Neutrino Ion Reactors. And as far as either race could tell, it wasn't something that was in very heavy use by any species, nor did it suddenly pop into existence randomly.

"Alright, take us in. Keep running scans until we find the source of those signals," Jack ordered as Marks acknowledged.

The asteroid field began to grow larger in the viewport as the _Odyssey_ accelerated towards it, and soon the perspective of the bridge began tilting from right to left as Marks banked the ship in order to avoid incoming rocks. While navigating an asteroid field was normally hazardous without shields, although the hull of the 304 was capable of protecting it from everything but the largest asteroids, there appeared to be paths in the field as though they were moved out of the way to make way for ships. After a few minutes of flying through the field, the _Odyssey_ came out into an open area that was dominated by a massive, mushroom-shaped space station.

"Whoa..." whispered a shocked airman who was running passive sensor sweeps of the open area the Earth vessel found itself in.

The rest of the crew were in a similar state of awe; this was probably the largest artificial structure any of them had seen in space. It too had a red glow from lights and what seemed like power generators, along with hundreds of large antennas and defense turrets sticking out all over. Besides that, the crew could see hundreds of ships of varying classes and sizes flying all over the place; some looked like freighter ships while others were clearly warships.

"Well... that certainly wasn't expected," Vala commented as she stepped up to the view port to get a better look at the space station.

"Ya, I'll say..." Colonel Mitchell muttered in awe, being relatively new to the Stargate program he was fairly easily impressed with everything they came across.

Jack hit the com to engineering, "Carter, what can you tell me about this thing?"

There was a slight pause as Carter no doubt was busy running scans and taking in all the data coming in from the _Odyssey's_ new and enhanced sensors, "... _Sorry sir just finishing up. Okay... from what I can tell the station is roughly forty kilometers in length, making it the largest space worthy construction we've seen to date. It appears to be both a mining facility and a city of sorts, if these sensors are reading correctly then there's almost ten million life forms in there, including a large number of humans. I'm guessing this is some sort of multi-species venture, but we have no records of these other races. Not even in the Asgard Core. Not to mention the number of ships there I'm detecting flying around out there, which I have to say doesn't make me very comfortable_."

"I can confirm that sir. Most of them appear to be small cargo ships, but I am detecting a sizable number of warships. Most aren't too much bigger than ourselves," Marks chimed in, though there was a slight edge to his voice due to being so massively out numbered.

'Dam' Jack thought to himself; the last thing they needed was to get into a fight when they had absolutely no intel on who these guys were and what the galactic situation is. Not to mention the _Odyssey_ had already sustained some damaged when outrunning a planet exploding and an Ori mothership nipping at their heels. Still, they needed answers and he had a feeling that this place would have at least some of them.

"Alright, keep the cloak running and keep us atleast a hundred clicks away from any ship. SG-1, I'm sending you on recon to that... big... mushroom thing," Jack ordered as he stood up and beckoned them to follow him out of the bridge, "I want you guys finding out who lives there, what connection if any they have to any of our allies, and anything else you can gather. Marks, you have the conn."

Mitchell sped up his pace to be in step with the general as they left, "Sir? This whole situation just got a lot more difficult. New races means First Contact scenario."

Turning a corner to enter the elevator the older man sighed, "Ya I know, that's why were headed down to engineering to see what Carter can whip up to help out. But we need answers and for the moment going in there feels like the right move. Now come on, we're burnin day light," he explained, waiting for everyone to get in the elevator and hitting the down button.

 **1600 Hours  
Unknown Space Station, Milky Way**

The space station was a lot uglier up close, though it obviously wasn't designed for aesthetic purposes. Much of the metal was of a dark, fog grey that left nothing to the imagination. Other parts were showing major signs of rust and serious degradation, hinting at the old age of the station. One particular alley that led away from a major street had a signal crimson light illuminating it and the small pitter patter of water or some other form of liquid leaking from an overhead pipe. Suddenly a musical chime filled the air as four pillars of bright blue light appeared out of thin air, the light overpowering the alley's own until it deposited four well armed humans and disappeared just as quickly as it came.

The four humans were back to back as they scanned the immediate are for contacts, only relaxing slightly as they saw that the alley was empty other than them.

"Okay people, let's take this nice and slow. Keep your guns holstered and away unless we see some unfriendlies. The last thing we need to get into a fire fight in the first five minutes in a first contact scenario... again," Colonel Mitchell ordered, remembering that their last first contact did not go well.

"Right, but we can always take hostages again if things go wrong," Vala quipped, earning a glare from the archeologist beside her.

With that out of the way, the team stepped out into the street, immediately they were taken aback at the sheer number of aliens and humans walking around going about their business like it was totally normal for this many species to be in one place together. There were many markets and eateries that people were busy spending whatever form of currency they had now a days.

But the aliens... that was what made SG-1 most surprised, and slightly uncomfortable. While there were a number of alien races besides humans and Jaffa in their own time, they had never seen such an abundant number of races, especially all living together in what seemed like relative peace.

"Well, I guess a lot of things change over a hundred years..." Daniel commented as he stared at the aliens who walked by, many of them giving the group of Taur'i strange looks as they passed.

SG-1 was decked out in standard black BDU's, tactical vests and armed with P90's and Zats; most of these aliens and humans seemed to wear civilian clothing, though the styles were very much different than that of Earth and had a very futuristic aesthetic to them. Others, clearly military or police, had full body armor and strange looking weapons on their backs and hips: they seemed to be made of some sort ceramic or other material as opposed to the polymers of their own weapons. They looked as alien as the Goaul'd stun weapons on their hips, but still had a definite 'gun' look to them.

"Wow... this is... different," Mitchell commented as he took in the sight before him.

"Clearly you've never been to Amarna," Vala chimed back, then seeing the confused look from the Taur'i in their party continued, "It's a trading world. One of the more developed planets in the galaxy. There was already heavy trading going on before the fall of the System Lords. Now it's one of the largest black market trading centers in the galaxy, with lots of different races coming together in the spirit of thievery and underhandedness."

Daniel rolled his eyes, but continued to stare at the strange sight of so many different species interacting with each other. He saw what looked like a cross between Oranians and humans with four eyes and a tall, avian looking alien with horns coming out of its head having a very heated argument. Though he couldn't understand what they were saying, he could see that it was over something the four eyed alien had most likely purchased from the avian creature. Further down the street he could see a blue woman and a female human eating... something together, sharing occasional laughs in between chewing and drinking. It was so strange how... human these other species seemed to be behaving.  
Even though Stargate Command had encountered other races besides humans throughout their travels in the galaxy, most had evolved to a point where their cultures had transcended the more simplistic aspects of human society. But these aliens seemed to be very relatable, and not just because several of them appeared to be very human in appearance.

Moving on the team continued down the street keeping their weapons holstered and away so as not to create any problems with the locals. Though it went unsaid, a few of the members of SG-1 felt uneasy being in a clearly advanced society with no knowledge of who they were, nor of what had occurred since they had arrived here in the future. Most of the time SG-1 went to planets whose societies were still in feudal or tribal stages of development. And on the rare occasion they went to an advanced society they usually had some prior contact and time to prepare for their visit. Not to mention they had basically boarded this space station without anyone's permission, and had no idea of what laws they held here regarding trespassing. The last thing any of them wanted was to have a run in with authorities... again.

"So any idea how were supposed to get information from anyone here? Cause I don't know about any of you but I didn't exactly take lessons in four eye alien speak?" asked Vala as they came to a stop in the middle of what seemed to be the equivalent of a town square.

Though town square may have been a bit generous; it was a intersection of six different streets that all converged on a large pipe that was about the width of a sequoia tree back on Earth, and many times taller as it stretched into the rock 'ceiling' hundreds of meters above them. The massive gap between their level and the ceiling gave way to a fantastic view of this part of the station. Out in the 'open' air they could see what appeared to be hundreds of flying cars all flying in coordinated lanes.

Cam let out a whistle, "Now those are some things I wouldn't mind getting my hands on. Guess Doc Brown was right," he commented, clearly impressed with the new flying vehicle they had just been introduced to.

"Indeed Colonel Mitchell, though I do believe that even he couldn't have conceived that cars would fly in space," Teal'c replied, having seen the old Earth movie about the crazy time traveling scientist and his young cohort.

Vala pouted and crossed her arms, "Just gonna ignore me fellas?"

Mitchell stared at the scene before him for a few more moments before returning to reality, "Huh? Oh right, we need to find a computer or something we can plug this into. Not sure how that's gonna work though, no wires..." he replied before pulling out a white, polished stone.

" _It's a quantum relay interface that is able to connect to computers and other access terminals using... never mind. Point is it doesn't need wires Cam_ ," Carter suddenly piped in over their coms from her position in the Core room on the _Odyssey_.

"Right... well we need to find one first for it to do... whatever it is you need to do," Cam replied as the team began moving again.

Soon they found what they figured had to be a store based on how many aliens were going in empty handed only to leave with various pieces of tech that none of the team recognized. They filed in one by one and took a moment to survey their surroundings. Probably the size of an average Starbucks, the store had a register area at the back of the room where several customers were waiting to purchase their respective items; at least that's what appeared to be happening. There were several sections to the store that were divided into specific types of whatever this store sold spread out over tables and hung up on walls, and other sections had holographic displays instead of any actual items.

Seeing a screen in a wall with a holographic keyboard near the back left corner of the building, Cam quickly made his way over to it. Once he was within a foot of the terminal, and made sure no one was looking, he pulled out the Asgard device and held it up to the screen. A few seconds went by, then suddenly the screen began to glitch and sizzle out before going dead. Only a millisecond later it came back to life and suddenly began to show line after line of code, scrolling by thousands of lines a second. The transfer only took a few more seconds before the Asgard stone glowed a low light before becoming dull again and the computer went back to its normal state.

" _Transfer complete, stand by... okay I've got the translation software. Transferring to your ear pieces now_ ," Carter spoke into the coms.

A moment later the team heard a quiet beep as their ear pieces reset and came back online, and a second later all the incomprehensible rabble from the aliens around them became clear and understandable English. Conversations varied from what kind of omni-tool upgrade they wanted to buying new VI software to help run their business. All of which still went over SG-1's heads, but at least they could hear what they were saying even if they couldn't pick up on the lingo here.

"Well that's one obstacle out of the way," Cam commented, glad to have an avenue of communication to use with these aliens as opposed to a game of charades, "So, anything else you get out of that computer Carter?"

" _Yes, a lot more than I expected actually. It's gonna take some time to sort through it all, but for now I'll relay any information relevant to your mission to Daniel's datapad_ ," the Colonel replied before getting back off the com.

A few minutes passed before Daniel's datapad pinged with confirmation as to the information it just received; he pulled it out from his belt as he started to go over information on the aliens that they had encountered so far. Each race had a picture and general data; bullet point data to be sure sense they didn't have time to read a whole book on each race at the moment.

"Okay, looks like those four eyed aliens are called Batarians. Humanoid, aggressive and not very trusting or friendly with other species: particularly humans. The tall ones with horns are called Turians, military society and... oh, not on very good terms with humans either. We're gonna have to be careful interacting with these guys," Daniel read off, pausing as he skimmed the other races profiles.

"Greeting humans!" a higher pitched, distinctively male voice suddenly jumped in from out of nowhere.

The team quickly turned to see a tall and slender alien with two appendages coming out of his head and large black eyes that reminded them of the now dead Asgard.

"Uhh hi there," Cam replied after a moment of hesitation, as despite his two year service on SG-1 his experience with non-human aliens was relatively minimal.

The alien nodded, "I'm Kordo, welcome to _Kordo's Tech, Supplies, and Stuff_! Can I help you find anything today?" he quickly asked with much enthusiasm.

Vala raised an eyebrow, "Stuff? That's a strange name to call your business?"

"Well studies have shown that humans are 23.8 percent more likely to go into a store if it has a human fling added to the name. And Asari tend to gravitate to more culturally diverse stores," he replied just as quickly.

Vala looked like she had more to say but was cut off by Mitchell.

"Thanks but we just needed to use that computer, we've got some business in other parts of town so we gotta get movin."

The alien put his hands up to show he wasn't offended, "Of course, of course. You look like very busy people who probably have very important places to be, people to see. Just make sure to tell your friends about Kordo's, best place to get VI's and omni tools on Omega!"

With that said he quickly danced his way over to some new potential customers and repeated roughly the same lines to them, clearly having been from a script on how to handle customers. SG-1 made its way out of the store and back into the street which had taken on a more inviting appearance and feel to it now that they could understand and talk to these people here without a problem.

"So what was that guy back there? He seemed as jittery as a grasshopper bakin on a rock in the desert sun?" asked Mitchell.

Daniel swiped a few pages to get to the store owner's race's profile, "Salarian. Smart, quick, and have an extremely fast metabolism that causes them to age at almost twice the rate of humans. They tend to think and speak a lot faster too."

"Hmm, I got a bit of a con man vibe from him," the Colonel thought as he rested his chin on a fist, supporting that arm on his other folded over his chest.

"I liked him," Vala smiled, getting a knowing look back from the Colonel.

"At least we know the name of this space station: Omega. Come on, we got a mission to get on with," he replied as the team began moving again.

 **1710 Hours  
Omega, Milky Way**

The team had made their way to the center of the station, closer to the living areas and more populated sections. They figured it would be their best bet in finding out what the state of the galaxy was from someone, as the data they had recovered already would take some time to analyze. So SG-1 found themselves walking along the edge of a street, which also offered a good view of the rest of the station in the distance.  
Suddenly three aliens, a Batarian and two Turians, stepped into their path. All three were heavily armed, but hadn't drawn their weapons, yet.

"Humans. Aria wants to see you, now," the Batarian spoke curtly, with a hint of annoyance in his voice.

Each of them looked at each other, not sure how to respond to that exactly. They had no idea who this Aria was, or what they wanted from SG-1. The only thing they could think of was that this Aria was some sort of authority figure on Omega, and that they hadn't taken too kindly to SG-1's unauthorized intrusion to the station. Still, they weren't being shot at yet, so they figured they weren't in that big of trouble.

"Right... we're kinda new here buddy. Not sure who this Aria is," Cam replied.

One of the Turians to the left of the Batarian growled, but was silenced when the Batarian raised his hand.

"She's the boss of this station human, I'd watch your tone around her if you value your head. Afterlife, Aria, _now_ ," he replied, jerking his thumb behind him to the building that had a large line outside of it.

With that the three aliens left the humans and Jaffa to their own devises, and confusion. Looking at the building in question they could see a large line of both humans and aliens waiting to get in, the stairs leading up to the large door surrounded by flames and a large holographic display over head shifting between various languages; finally stopping on English and spelling out _Afterlife_.

"Well gang, what do we think?" Cam asked his team, despite being the leader he wasn't one to ignore others viewpoints of the situation and wanted to hear their opinions before making a final decision.

"I don't know about you guys, but this Aria sounds like a real hardass. I've always found it best to avoid those types of people," Vala suggested, not eager to get into a confrontation any time soon.

Daniel looked up from his datapad, "Yaaaa, but we're here to get information. If this Aria is the leader of this station then they'd be the most likely to have what we need and get to us. Plus her guards didn't try and use force to make us go, even if it wasn't much of a suggestion. We don't wana offend anyone here, we are guests after all."

Cam nodded at both, thinking to himself their thoughts before turning to look at Teal'c who was looking out at the view of the station. Thinking of his people, Cam guessed, and their current situation.  
Despite Earth's continuing efforts to stop the Ori from taking their galaxy, Earth had remained relatively untouched baring the plague that hit not too long ago. Thanks to the Ancient Drone Weapons platform in Antarctica, the threat of an Ori fleet attacking was minimal until they crushed all other remaining holdouts: holdouts like the Free Jaffa. Having the largest standing military in the galaxy, the Jaffa had led the fight on the frontlines against the Ori in an attempt to slow their advance. Despite early losses, the Jaffa had since adapted and followed more Taur'i based tactics of hit and run attacks and found some success; though most traditional Jaffa would only admit it begrudgingly. But it was like trying to stop a tidal wave; you could set up strong walls, evacuate people, take steps to minimize damage, but that wave was gonna come sooner or later and there wasn't a damn thing you could do about it. And as strong willed and determined as the Jaffa were it could only delay the inevitable when faced with enemies as powerful as the Ori.

Turning back to Cameron Teal'c spoke, "We must determine exactly what the states of our civilizations are, and while I do believe caution must be exercised, I do not think we have time to search for a alternative option."

The Colonel nodded, feeling that the collective decision had been reached. The team walked over to Afterlife prepared to step in line when the guard, a massive alien Daniel explained was an Elcor, told them they were expected and could go straight in; much to the annoyance and frustration of the people in line. The team quickly filed in as the doors shut behind them, leading them to a large hallway with couches and relaxing chairs that various groups had occupied. As they walked towards the next set of doors, they soon realized that they stood out like a sore thumb. Everyone in this place, as well as the line, were dressed in clean suits and dresses and other very expensive looking clothing. Though they spotted a guard or two, no one else was wearing military BDU's and as heavily armed as they were; it begged the question as to what Afterlife was exactly.

They reached the next door, which pulled apart in the middle with the hologram in the front vanishing and up into the floor and ceiling. Once inside they saw the room was massive, with stands and various upper levels surrounding the middle of the room which was open showed off the lower levels to the building. To their right they saw could only be a bar, and to their left were chairs and booths for sitting. And dancing... everywhere they looked they saw dancing: humans, Asari, Turians, pretty much every species they had just been introduced to today was dancing to the loud beats and heavy bass of the music.

"Oooh, I take it back. I'm really glad we decided to come here!" Vala exclaimed.

"It's definitely not what I was expecting," Mitchell mumbled, turning from a table that had a very scantily clad Asari dancing on it surrounded by a few humans and Turians.

He motioned for his team to follow as he walked towards the bar area and away from the large crowds of people dancing and to get away from the strippers. Despite all he'd experienced these last few years, he was raised in a Catholic home with strong morals. Now he was all for free will, but he wasn't very comfortable with these Asari and humans throwing themselves out there without some self-respect. But those issues would have to wait, as they had more pressing ones to deal with. Walking up to the bar he saw that it was a Turian giving out drinks. The tall alien was in the middle of mixing some kind of blue and purple liquid when he notice four heavily armed humans come up to his bar.

"I hope you're not here to cause any problems humans," the Turian grumbled, clearly not very comfortable with their presence or the very obvious weapons on their persons.

Cam smiled and shook his head before leaning against the bar nonchalantly, "Nope, no problems here pal. Just lookin for a bit of info, we we're told to meet someone named Aria here. Maybe you could point us in the right direction."

The bar tender just stared at the Colonel incredulously before going back to his mixing, " _If_ that's true, then she'll have you brought up to her private lounge when she wants you up there. Not before," he said as he nodded over to the lounge in question overlooking the whole club.

Cam nodded in thanks, but couldn't help but feel annoyed at having to wait. Like Teal'c had just made clear, they didn't have a whole lot of time to be fooling around. The fate of the galaxy might be hanging in the balance, and as per usual it was up to SG-1 to tip the scales.

"Why don't you humans get a drink, you all look like you could use one," the Turian suddenly spoke up before sliding them four glasses filled with a green liquid.

Vala didn't hesitate, immediately her hand reached out at grabbed the nearest glass to her and raised it to her lips to chug back. In turn Teal'c's hand shot out in a blur to halt her consumption of the unknown drink.

Cam's eyes narrowed at the bartender, "You give every new patron here free drinks?"

The Turian shrugged, "Just the ones who might be meeting with Aria; usually means they're heavy hitters here on Omega here on business, or it might be the last drink they'll have if it's not."

That did not inspire confidence in Mitchell, but _Odyssey_ was still within beaming range if things got hot. Plus, if violence had been on this Aria's agenda, she could have sent her men out sooner to attack. Hell, they didn't even exactly know what part of the station they were in, they just happened to make it here by their uncanny luck. It would have been relatively easy to set up an ambush against a four man squad who had no lay of the terrain. So for the moment, he just had to trust that this was the right course of action and that it wouldn't put his team in harm's way.

The team waited for a little while longer, taking the unexpected break in their mission to observe the club in greater detail. Daniel didn't really look up from his datapad much, still very much interested in all the new cultural information he had received from Colonel Carter. Vala spent most of her time trying to get Daniel to come out onto the dance floor with her; something that the good doctor was definitely not trying to do. Teal'c and Cam mostly just watched the guards who were standing near the stairs to the private lounge and at other points throughout the club that gave overlapping fields of fire; ever vigilant for possible threats.  
After some time one of the guards, this time a Turian, came up to SG-1 and beckoned for them to follow.

Quickly the team followed, walking up the steps until they came to the opening of the lounge. Behind them was a small booth area, where several prestigious guests were sitting and enjoying a more relaxed social setting. But the overlook had a large U-shaped couch that looked as comfy as it was expensive; one blue skinned women with black leggings that left nothing to the imagination and a white vest that covered her upper back and arms was standing with her arms crossed and her back turned to them.

Before SG-1 could climb the little ramp to get closer all the guards in the vicinity suddenly drew their weapons and aimed them at the team. Teal'c had his Zat and P90 drawn as soon as he saw the twitch of movement, aiming them both at a different guard. Daniel and Vala both put their hands up; the former out of peaceful intentions and the latter out of self preservation. Cam just eyed the Asari in front of him before crossing his arms over his chest.

"Now this ain't any way to treat a guest," he calmly stated.

That seemed to earn a humph of amusement from her, and the woman turned around to face him. He could see that her face had purple tribal markings over it, and it seemed to only highlight the viciousness that her presence filled the area with. This was someone who was utterly confident in their mind and body and abilities; someone who knew what she wanted and that she could have it, and would go to whatever lengths she needed to achieve her goals. Ergo, this was not someone to be trifled with.

"Well, can't be too careful with new faces now can we. You're being scanned for any nasty surprises you might have," she replied in a calm, lusty voice.

On cue, a Batarian to his right pulled up what Cam now knew was an omni tool that seemed to have a full 3D scan of his entire body; highlighting several areas of his body that held his weapons, combat knife, and other such goodies.

"They're clean," the Batarian stated, putting his omni tool away.

Nodding to her men, the guards lowered their weapons. Teal'c held his up only a moment longer before lowering his as well, though he kept his out and ready to go at a moment's notice. The other human members of SG-1 also lowered their arms, though they remained alert for any more foul play from their 'gracious' host. Aria then sat down on her couch, legs crossed and her arms resting in her lap; she motioned for Cam to have a seat to her right, though no one else.

As he sat down he nodded at his team to relax, "So I take it you're Aria?"

"That's right, and it's something you should make a note of remembering. Here on Omega, my word is law. I'm the boss, queen if you like. And you are?" she asked, her words glazed with a fake sincerity.

Cam sat up straighter, "Colonel Cameron Mitchell, commanding officer of SG-1. That's Dr Daniel Jackson, Vala Mal Doran, and Teal'c of Chulac," he introduced himself and his team.

Aria raised what would have been an eyebrow had she any hair, and eyed the three humans and Jaffa in front of her. Clearly none of that mattered to her, so the Colonel continued.

"We came to your station looking for some information, see we're a little lost. If you could help us out, we'd be willing to compensate you," he explained in a clear, professional tone.

Aria tilted her head in confusion, looking over the Colonel and then at the rest of SG-1. She scanned them up and down, then brought her hand to her chin in deep thought.

"I take it your outfit isn't with the Alliance? What is it then: Corsairs? Black Ops? Or just a rag tag group of mercs?" she asked, only adding to Mitchell's already confusing day.

He shook his head, "No ma'am, we're of the Taur'i; Stargate Command. Well, me and Jackson are. Teal'c is a Jaffa and Vala is from... well not too sure about that exactly but she's not from Earth."

"And the Taur'i is what exactly?" she asked, leaning slightly forward with interest.

This of course confused the colonel greatly; by this point the Taur'i and Earth were well known throughout the galaxy as one of the key instruments in bringing down the Goa'uld Empire, alongside the Free Jaffa and Tok'ra. They must have been in a very secluded sector of the galaxy for this Aria to never have heard of them.

"Nevermind, that's not important. What is important is that you need something from me," she interrupted his chain of thought.

Then she smiled, an almost feral grin, and turned to the Colonel.

"I think I can help you with what you need, but first I need you to do something for me," she stated simply.

By the tone of her voice, Cam could tell that he was definitely not going to like where this was going.

"We're not mercenaries ma'am, and not for hire," he firmly stated, not trying to get roped into whatever dirty business she was involved in.

Aria let out a chuckle, "You human military types, ever the boy scouts. As it so happens this won't be any morally _questionable_ work for you, probably nothing worse than what you've already done in the past."

"Why would you even want us to do this? You don't know us, and you don't seem like the type to just hire randoms off the street?" Cam asked suspiciously.

Aria nodded at that, "True enough. But this particular job is... well, let's just say it is a rather sensitive matter. I can't be directly involved in it, nor can any of my known associates. But you four look like you can take care of yourselves, and seem desperate enough not to be picky. Here, this data pad will have all the information you need, if you want my help you're gonna have to run this errand for me. Speak to Garvuk outside the club if you accept, otherwise get the hell off my station."

Being dismissed, Cam and his team went back down the stairs and back into the hallway between the entrance and exit of the club.

"That went well, I think," Daniel commented, thankful that the meeting didn't erupt into a fight.

"I don't know, she didn't even bring up the fact that we snuck aboard her station," Cam pointed out.

Vala shrugged, "She probably doesn't care all that much, we're just four humans on a massive space station among millions of other life forms, and we didn't cause any trouble. Or maybe we're being set up for a shady back alley ambush away from the public eye."

The whole team gave her a hard look at that comment, but couldn't deny the possibility either. They walked out of the club and back into the streets to where they were first approached by Aria's men to have a bit more privacy.

Once there Mitchell contacted the _Odyssey_ , "Sam, this is Mitchell. You copy?"

" _Here Cam, you have a status update_?" the Colonel asked.

"Affirmative, we met with the person in charge around here. It went pretty good, no one got shot at so I'd chalk that one up as a win. Leader's name is Aria. We got the boss lady to agree to help us out but only if we scratch her back first," he asked her.

" _Copy that_..." she replied dejectedly, trailing off without another word.

Daniel looked at Teal'c with an inquisitive glance, Teal'c raising his eyebrow in return. When you spent nearly every day of the last ten years with someone, laughed with each other, cried with each other, went to hell and back with each other, you knew when something seriously wrong was affecting that person. Even if it was just through hearing a few words over a radio.

Cam picked up on the two senior team members' vibe, and spoke into his com, "Carter? Everything alright?"

There was a long pause, causing the team to exchange looks of worry. Carter was usually very succinct and to the point, so whatever she had found had clearly rocked her to her core.

"... _We're in a different universe_ ," she stated plainly.

That sent the whole team reeling back in shock.

Daniel shook his head as if to clear his wits from being slapped, "Uh come again Sam? Did you just say-"

" _Yes I did. The data we got from their computers doesn't match up with our own history; there's no mention of the Ori, Goaul'd, Jaffa, or anything we know about the galaxy today, or rather the galaxy plus a hundred and seventy years into the future. I was only able to take a relatively limited amount since we don't know how advanced their security software is and we don't want to get caught breaking into their systems, but all the information we pulled from their networks, combined with all these new species you've seen today prompted me to use the Core to analyze the quantum frequency this universe resonates at. It's not too far off from our own, but I ran the tests several thousand times to confirm it_ ," she replied sadly, not saying another word.

No one said another word; what could they say? While the team was fairly used to time travel, adding the shift into another universe complicated the already dire situation exponentially. Not only we're they so far from the help of their peoples, but based on what they had seen and what Carter had learned it seemed that there weren't any alternate versions of what they knew and loved in this universe. Or if they're were they might have all died out long ago.

"... But you have some idea on how to get us back right? I mean, we have all the knowledge of the Asgard?! Isn't there something you can do?" Vala exclaimed, panic creeping into her voice.

"Vala..." Daniel started calmly.

Vala let out a nervous laugh, "I-I mean there has to be _something_ -"

"VALA," the archeologist stated more firmly this time, getting her to close her mouth immediately.

Cam shook his head and stared out into the distance wondering how he seemed to be able to keep his head above water with all these seemingly impossible situations he'd been put into over the last few years. Hell, just a few years prior he didn't even know about anything beyond their little blue planet; now he was a whole universe away from home.

"Sir, you on the line?" he asked into the com.

" _...Ya, I'm here_..." General O'Neill stated in an irritated tone, clearly not any happier with the situation than his team.

"Sir, what are your orders?" the younger officer asked, now even more unsure as to what their next step should be.

" _Alright guys, I know we're in a bind here but the need for some good intel is more important now than ever. I know it's not ideal, but we need to reach out to anyone who's willing to share. Let's go over what this... Aria wants from you guys exactly before we jump in bed with her... that sounded a lot different in my head_ ," the General ordered, and the team began relaying their encounter and request from Aria including the datapad she gave them.

Elsewhere on the station two Batarians were standing guard outside a large set of doors leading into a larger facility. It was deep within the bowels of Omega, away from the outer sections and civilian populated areas. In fact, as far as the rest of the station was concerned these areas were no man's land for anyone who wasn't part of the local gangs, and intergalactic ones. There were occasional scuffles, even a small war or two, over the years in these ganglands but there was a relative peace since most of these gangs had offworld operations going and thus had more room to spread out. Plus anyone initiating a full scale war under Aria's watch was asking for a bullet to the head.

"Guard duty again?" sighed one of the Batarians, his body leaning against the building and his gun down and safety on.

The other shook his head and he blew smoke from the rolled up herbs and leaves he was smoking, "I know, I think it's cause we killed some of the merchandise last week. Filthy _animals_ had it coming, but I think in the future we need to exercise a little more restraint."

"I guess we should consider ourselves lucky that they didn't take the loss out of our pay," the other guard agreed.

Suddenly there was a loud crash and a shattering of some glass from the alley about a dozen meters in front of them. The smoking guard dropped his bad habit and brought his gun to bare instantly while the guard leaning against the post scrambled to get his gun prepared. The two inched their way towards the alleyway flinching their guns at every little sound. Another _thud_ came from a small crate on the ground against an abandoned apartment door; the two aimed their weapons at the crate ready to fire on whatever was hiding in it. The lid burst open: a small monkey-like creature leapt from the crate and scurried up a nearby pipe, inaccurate automatic fire trailing behind it.

"Hold your fire! It's just a pyjak!" the smoking guard yelled over his peer's gunfire.

His friend stopped, looking to see if he had hit the creature and disappointed to see he had missed every shot.

"Damn, you really need to work on your aim if you're gonna stick with this outfit," laughed his friend.

Before the inept Batarian could respond there was a loud zapping noise and the two were hit with bolts of blue electrical energy. The currents snaked their way around the bodies of the two Batarians causing their bodies to seize up until the two passed out and dropped to the floor. Out of the shadows SG-1 quickly policed their weapons and dragged the guard's bodies to a nearby garage disposal pin. Once they were hidden, the team sprinted to the doors that now lay unguarded and quickly used the Asgard computer they were given to hack the doors and allow them entry. Once the doors opened they filed inside and shut the doors behind them.

"Well that was easy," Vala stated as they secured the first room in the building, what appeared to be a administrations center of sorts.

"Ya, that's exactly what Leia said to Han when they escaped the Death Star. They didn't know we were coming, and it's only gonna get harder from here on out," Cam commented, moving over to the computer terminal and pulling up its primary archive.  
"Okay... looks like we need to take that hallway to the main holding cells, then we'll have to override their lockdown protocols once there. Or rather this little guy is gonna need to," he explained, holding of the Asgard stone.

Cam couldn't help but wonder if they should have even been doing this; assaulting an unknown alien base to rescue unknown aliens in an unknown universe was a bit reckless, even by SG-1 standards.

 _ **The team had sequestered themselves away from the populated entrance of Afterlife into a small back alley a few hours earlier. Once they were certain they were away from anyone they briefed Carter and O'Neill on their current situation. None of them were too keen on doing what essentially amounted to mercenary work for what was obviously a criminal organization, but neither could they deny that they needed to know what they were up against in this galaxy.  
While the information gathered by Colonel Carter was very helpful in letting them create translation software and identify what species were what, the rest of the information was relatively limited to things pertaining to this station only. And Carter didn't want to risk further intrusion into their more secure databases without proper understanding of the security, stating that the Asgard Core could probably hack into them without issue but it probably wasn't wise to potentially make new enemies. The rest of the team agreed since they had enough on their plate already.  
So once they started to go over the intel in Aria's datapad, they realized what she meant by it not being morally questionable: their primary objective was rescue three Asari being held by Batarian slavers. According to Aria, they were being held alongside many others waiting to be shipped out to slave markets in Batarian space. Once that happened they'd be unreachable, so Aria wanted to get them out before that. Of course, she couldn't just charge their gates and take them all herself; she was queen of Omega, but even a queen needed supporters and allies. Attacking these slavers openly would only cause problems with some of her business partners, and she didn't do bad business. So sending in unaffiliated mercenaries was the next best thing.  
Everyone on board the Odyssey had spent years fighting the Goaul'd and Ori, trying to stop them from creating a galaxy of slaves to be used and discarded like tools and waste. So it was no surprise that SG-1, both new and old, had a certain amount of passion when it came to fighting slavery. Teal'c was on board almost immediately upon learning what they needed to do, and the rest of the team agreed as well that these people needed to be rescued. So they set to work to creating a plan that followed Aria's general intel on the layout of the base they would be assaulting. **_

The three humans quickly moved down the hallway, taking their time to be as silent as possible and not alert any more attention. There were a few close calls with hallway patrols they had to dodge, and security cameras which were taken care of by the Asgard-do-it-all computer as Mitchell had come to call it. But soon they came to a door that had a red holographic lock on it, indicating something important behind it.

"Okay, be ready to breach," Cam ordered as he primed a flash bang in one hand and held the computer in the other.

Daniel and Vala nodded, taking up positions on either side of the door. Cam nodded, and a second later the lock turned green and the door opened. A half second after that he threw the flash bang inside, waited for the loud _pop_ , and then rushed inside followed closely by his friends.  
The room was about the size of a gymnasium, more of a warehouse than anything else. Lining the left and right sides of the room were small individual rooms with some kind of force fields acting as the doors; there were catwalks above that crossed the top of the room, and a control station in the middle of the room.  
And guards. Lots of guards.  
Cam shot the first one he saw standing in front of the console, the Batarian going down immediately from a well placed shot to his upper torso. Another two were dropped by Vala and Daniel before all three took cover behind some pillars at the front of the room. Seconds later the other guards in the room got over their disorientation from the flash bang and shock of being engaged and returned fire. SG-1 offered a few potshots to keep the Batarians honest and stuck in cover, but neither could they move up to engage them without taking fire. Suddenly red lights began to shine all over the place and a piercing alarm began to ring out.

Daniel flinched as a chunk of the pillar he was behind was taken out, "Well I think it's safe to say they know we're here now!"

"I told you we should have just beamed in and out!" the thief to his side yelled back.

"Can it you two!," the Colonel barked as he reached up to the radio in his ear, "T we could use a little bit of that ninja Jaffa action right about now!"

On the catwalks above two Batarian guards continued to fire down at the humans in cover. As one stopped to reload his gun was violently ripped out of his hands and thrown down to the ground floor. He then felt a force grip his throat and found himself lifted off his feet and into the air, only seconds later his neck snapped from the immense pressure being exerted on it. His body was then thrown by an invisible force into his friend and the two fell from the catwalks to the ground. Another Batarian taking cover behind the console stood up and stared in shock, only for his head to be completely vaporized by a bolt of yellow energy that seemed to come from out of nowhere. This completely stalled the flow of the battle, the Batarians taken completely by surprise. Two more who were in cover behind pillars from SG-1 were taken down in quick succession by more bolts of energy, and the final guard taken down when he stepped from his cover to engage whatever was taking his men down so quickly.  
With all the hostiles in the immediate area taken down, the humans stepped out from their cover and walked over to the control console. Once they walked around to the side that had holographic interfaces on it, there was a shimmering of the space near it and suddenly Teal'c faded into sight.

Cam nodded at his friend as he pulled a dead guard who was lying on the console off it so he could access the interface and turn off the alarm," Good work T. Glad we brought that Sodan cloak with us."

Teal'c nodded, "Indeed Colonel Mitchell."

"Couldn't you have stepped in earlier?" Vala quipped, her arms at her hips and head cocked to the side.

Teal'c stared stoically, then nodded his head in confirmation. Vala just glared back at him silently. Cam just shook his head at the two, then suddenly there was a beep from the console alerting the whole team. Cam found the holo button that was flashing and pressed.

" _Detention area, we've detected gunfire coming from your location and the alarm was triggered. What is your status_?" asked the deep voice on the buildings com.

Daniel looked to Cam who just stared back and shrugged his shoulders, unsure of what to say. Daniel pointed his head at him and raised his eyebrows in exasperation, urging the officer to say something into the com lest they soon be overrun with more guards.

"Uh yes, we're all good here. Had a slight weapons malfunction, but we're all fine. All good. Here. How are you?" he stated unsurely into the com, causing Daniel to slap his forehead and Teal'c to give him an even harder stare than the one he gave Vala.

"...Alright, we're sending down a squad to secure the area," the voice replied back, obviously not buying Mitchell's attempt at warding off any visitors.

Thinking quickly he pulled out the Asgard device and used it close the door they just came through and disable all the systems in the room. As Cam pulled up some of the bases secure systems, the screen showing many different accounts with varying numbers in the five digit range, Teal'c aimed his staff weapon at the door, turned the weapon down to a lower setting, and fired a blast fusing the door shut.

"Well hopefully that buys us some time," Cam commented.

The team noticed that the detention cells' force fields had been deactivated and the occupants had slowly stared to file into the room. Most were human, though there were the few Asari they were here for and even a Turian, and were only garbed in rags and clearly not been given the best treatment. Many had cuts and bruises on their bodies, others had grime that indicated they hadn't showered in some time. Each one seemed to wear a neck brace that had neural shocks attached, and they all were frightened or nervous at the team that had just eliminated their captors. Daniel holstered his weapons and slowly walked over to the crowd that had formed in front of them, his hands raised to show that he wasn't a threat.

"Easy, my name is Doctor Daniel Jackson. This is Colonel Mitchell, Vala, and Teal'c. We're here to rescue you all," he calmly explained.

"Ya, how do we know you're not just trying to steal the goods and sell us for a better price?" questioned a man near the front of the crowd.

"Well we did just risk our lives to free you. The least you could do is thank us," Vala scolded as she crossed her arms and leaned back on her right leg.

Cam moved between his team and the large group in front of them, "Easy now, like Jackson said we aren't here to hurt ya. But we don't have a lot of time so we need to move. Now."

With that said he used the Asgard computer to hack into the prisoners' collars the way Sam had showed him and deactivated them, causing them to short out and fall from their necks to the ground. The slaves, now free, massaged their necks in surprise and relief now that the uncomfortable devices were off. This seemed to buy SG-1 a modicum of trust, at least enough to help them escape.

"How many of you can hold a gun?" the Colonel asked as he nodded to Teal'c, the Jaffa master in turn moving over to the wall in the back of the room and planting a C4 charge.

The three Asari stepped forward, the Turian, and a few humans as well. Mitchell instructed them to grab the weapons from the now dead Batarians and get ready to help defend the group. Once armed, they all took cover behind the pillars and whatever cover they could find.

Cam nodded to everyone in assurance, "Fire in the hole."

A second later the wall exploded outward into another hallway and the whole group quickly filed out of the detention area. They moved down the hallway, though their pace was slowed by the injuries the newly freed slaves had gained while in captivity. Amazing they encountered no resistance on their way out, which only seemed to put them all even more on edge.

Cam held his hand up as they came to a large set of doors, "Okay people, according to the schematics we pulled this door leads to a hangar with some shuttle we can use to get out of here. Bad news is we haven't ran into any other guards, which means they're probably waitin' for us on the other side of this door. You three," he pointed to the Asari, "You guys use your super funky powers to keep us from getting mowed down as soon as we open this door."

The three Asari stared at him in confusion, "You mean biotics?" one of them asked, her arms folded across her chest.

"Yes that's what he meant," Daniel stepped in for his friend, giving SG-1's leader a pointed look.

"Yep, that. Then I want the rest of you guys who have weapons to take the left flank, my team will take the right. Now assuming they don't have any nasty surprises waiting for us, we should be able to take the rest of them down without too much of a problem. We all clear on this," he asked the crowd, getting firm nods from the people who wanted to be as far as possible from this place.

His team took position on the right side of the door while the Turian and a couple of humans took the left side. The three Asari raised their hands in preparation, then gave Mitchell a firm nod. He quickly tapped the door's hololock and it opened up. A large blue field of energy appeared in front of the Asari just before it began taking a hail of gunfire. The blue women moved forward, spreading out slightly to cover the two teams as they followed in behind them.  
The hangar was fairly open and spacious; there were several shuttles parked with cargo and boxes of various shapes and sizes lying around. There was a line of containers near the hangar doors, behind them were about a dozen Batarians firing everything they had at the armed slaves and SG-1. Both teams took cover behind nearby crates, followed by the Asari. Once in cover they began to trade fire with the Batarians, with only the Turian and Teal'c managing to take a couple of them out.

"Cease fire!" a loud voice called out over the gunfire.

The Batarians all held their fire as the other side followed suit only moments later.

"Attention all slaves, lay down your weapons and return to your cells immediately! Human interlopers, surrender now and you may all live to be slaves for the Hegemony!" the voice barked, now identified to be a Batarian standing up on a crate so as to be seen and heard by all.

Cam popped a fresh clip into his P90, "Let me think on that!"

Jumping out of cover Cam fired a short burst at the Batarian leader, the bullets puncturing his suit and toppling the guard over and onto the ground. The rest of his team and the slaves opened up again, managing to fell a few more before taking cover again from the Batarian response.

One of the Asari growled and tightened her fists, her body glowing blue from the sudden surge of biotic power.

"I will not be a slave any longer!" she cried, rising from cover and throwing a condensed blue sphere of energy towards the middle of the Batarian line.

The sphere landed right behind the guards, freezing midair with the middle of it turning as black as the sea outside the station. Waves of purple and blue energy radiated off the sphere, and suddenly any Batarian within a meter of it levitated into the air. They spun and toppled into each other as the effects of gravity that once head such a tight grip on their body disappeared. Teal'c, taking advantage of the situation, stood up and quickly fired three accurate bolts of plasma at the guards. The force of the impact sent their bodies flying out of the sphere's range of effect and into the hangar bay doors behind them. The rest of the occupants of the battle, minus SG-1, stared at Teal'c in shock as they had clearly never seen such a weapon. SG-1, unfazed, fired upon the remaining Batarians. Their allies soon followed, and within in a few minutes all the remaining guards had been killed. They moved slowly over to the Batarians position to ensure that they were all dead; once satisfied they signaled the other slaves taking cover in the hallway to move into the hangar.

Cam walked into the middle of the group, "Alright, good work people. Time to high tail it outa here, anyone here who can pilot the second shuttle?"

A short woman stepped out from the back of the crowd, "Y-yes I can f-fly it. I was a shuttle pilot for the c-colony I live at. Lived at..." she trailed off.

Cam nodded understandably, "Alright, sounds good. Let's hoof it people, I'm sending the rendezvous point to the shuttle. We'll all meet up there, then drinks are on me."

With a much renewed stride in their step, the freed prisoners divided into two groups and boarded the shuttles. SG-1 boarded their shuttle, finally relaxing and taking a seat inside the passenger section. Cam walked into cockpit and sat in the pilot's chair and prepared the shuttle for takeoff. Daniel came up behind him, leaning over his shoulder as he watched Cam fumble around with the holographic interface.

"Uh... you sure you can fly this thing?" he asked unconfidently.

Cam looked at him, as if to ask 'do you know who I am', "Come on Jackson. I'm an ace F-302 pilot, flown a Puddle Jumper, and a Death Glider or two just to name a few. I think I can break in this old horse without too much trouble."

Daniel just shook his head, but dropped back with the others none the less. Once he had sent the coordinates for the meet up to the other shuttle, he managed to find the basic flight controls for his shuttle and activated the engines. The hangar doors opened up and the two shuttles flew out and into the 'skies' of Omega, free and clear.

Looking out at the now former slaves, who were now finally grasping the fact that they were free and were hugging each other and crying, Vala couldn't help but smile, knowing all too well what it was like to be a slave.

"You know, the last few months haven't really gone all that well for us. But I have to say, it feels nice for things to go right once in a while," she said as she leaned against Daniel.

For once the archeologist didn't resist the intimate gesture, as he too was glad that they were able to do something good for someone again. The last few months, hell the last two years, had been nothing but defeat after defeat at the hands of the Ori. They had some small victories, sure, but the Ori juggernaut had swept across the galaxy in a way that almost made them wish for the days of the Goaul'd. For now though, they could enjoy this victory. Even if it was for someone as shady as this Aria seemed to be, it was still a good feeling.  
Teal'c leaned against the bulkhead, his staff resting against his shoulder. He too was glad that they had rescued yet more people from slavery. It seemed that even a universe away there were those who seek to use and exploit innocents with force. And despite the feelings of loss and uncertainty he felt at their current situation, he for once agreed with Vala Mal Doran. It was good for something to go right.

 **Soooo ya I thought I was gonna abandon this story but I was hella bord and got a sudden urge to keep it going. Sorry it took soooo long, hope you guys enjoy it though. I'll have another chapter up relatively soon. Peace and love!**


End file.
